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" An Inquiry into the Genuineness of the Manuscript Correc- 
tions in Mr. J. Fayne Collier's Annotated Shakspcre, 
Folio, 1632 / and of certain Shaksperian Docu- 
ments likewise published by Mr. Collier." 
By N. E. S. A. Hamilton. (Bcntley.) 



ALSO, 



THE REPLY OF 

MR. J. PAYNE ^COLLIER, 

t 

TO THE 




{Reprinted from the {London) Athenaum of the ISth of February, 1860.) 



1*1*1 



"0 dear discretion, how his words are suited! 
The fool hath planted in his memory 
An army of good words ; and I do know 
A many fools, that stand in better place, 
Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word 
Defy the matter." 

Shakespeare. 



PRIN-XED FOR JPRIA^A-TK CIRCUI^ATIO?^ 

BY 

CHAliLES ^Y. FREDERICKSON. 

NEW YORK. 
18G0. 



r 



fT 






r 






THIS REPRINT 
IS 

DEDICATED 

TO THE ADMIRERS OF 

MR. J. PAYNE €OI. L.IER, 

IN THE 

UNITED STATES, 

BT 

C. ^W^. FREDERICKSOjS-, 

WHO APPRECIATES HIS CHARACTER AS AN 

HONEST MAN, 

AN 

, ACCOMPLISHED SCHOLAR, 

AND A 

WORTHY ELUCIDATOR OF THE TEXT OF SHAKESPEARE 



f 



An Inquiry into the Genuineness of the Manuscript Corrections in 
Mr. J. Payne Collier's Annotated Shakspere, Folio, 1632 ; and 
of certain Shakspei'ian Documents likeivise published by Mr. 
Collier. By N. E. S. A. Hamilton. (13entley.) 

In another part of our impression the reader will find Mr. Collier's 
answer to the charges contained in this 'Inquiry' — charges against 
his literary honesty and personal honour which every man of sense 
and delicacy will grieve to find dated from a Department of the 
National Library. We have read the accusation. We have read 
the reply In the fair and candid spirit which alone beseems a 
literary investigation — the spirit which, in perfect courtesy and 
perfect fearlessness, seeks solely to arrive at truth — we shall now 
compare with the reader our impressions of this most singular and 
painful case. 

" Department of Manuscripts, British Museum, January, I860" 
— such is the date borne by this 'Inquiry.' We will not dwell on 
the lamentable fact of the great national library being made the 
scene of such a debate. Our opinion on that point remains the 
same. The British Museum was founded, as we think, for a nobler 
end than to serve as a literary Old Bailey ; its staff of excellent offi- 
cers should never be degraded to the functions of public prosecutors. 
But having now to deal with concrete facts, not with abstract notions 
of right or wrong, the reader will pass that by as of less immediate 
interest. Character is at stake — hojiour that is dearer to a man 
than life. When character is in question, no man need pause to 
discuss the point of taste. Enough to ascertain whence the 
accusation comes. Of this there is unhappily no doubt. Every 
act in the indictment against Mr. Collier bears the seal, so to say, 
of a Department of the British Museum. The writings date 
from the British Museum. The writers serve in the British 
Museum. Mr. Arnold, Mr. Maskelyne, Mr. Hamilton — all the 
young gentlemen who, in newspapers and magazines, have for eight 
months past been lifting up their voices against Mr. Collier — are 
employed in the British Museum. 

The unanimity of these Museum gentlemen is not more clear 
than their companionship. But the mere fact of their unanimity, 
pleasant in itself will not impress the world outside the Museum 



6 

gates. A common sentiment — a common habit — a common con- 
viction — often pervades a regiment or a corporation. The Tenth 
don't dance. The Blues have a pet pattern in plate. The Royals 
read. Trinity House has its own traditions about shoals and tides. 
Guildhall delights in turtle. Manchester loves free trade. On 
other points the members of these corporations will fight each other 
— on these they will fight the world. Uncle Toby would trace the 
unanimity at the mess to a taste or a twist in the colonel. Man is 
imitative. Twenty fellows gape because one gapes. In bodies 
open to the control of a leading mind, opinion is a habit ; the value 
of the whole mass of opinion, counting by hands, is not more than 
that of the single head. Should the colonel swear yon cloud is 
very like a whale, his testimony to the truth of such a picture 
will not be strengthened by the additional and identical oaths of 
his twelve hundred rank and file. 

In the case of this Manuscript Department corps, the colonel 
who gives the law to his subalterns is not hard to find. The corps, 
indeed, seize every occasion to point him out. In every note to 
newspaper and magazine, conspicuously again in the grateful Pref- 
ace to this 'Inquiry,' appears the name and figure of Sir Frederic 
Madden. Sir Frederic is the Cajsar of tliif^ band. Mr. Arnold 
tells us that Sir Frederic is a palicographer of such vast renown that 
his mere word would suffice to authenticate or condemn the Cor- 
rected Folio. This may be valiant ; but is there no text which 
warns ns when discretion may be the better part of valour ? Caesar 
was fond of hearing his legions shout before his car ; but the 
humourous rogues who bawled to please him sometimes bawled to 
please themselves ; and then they let out truths which Cjxjsar, big 
as he was, would rather have kept in the privacy of his tent. Mr. 
Hamilton is even less discreet than his brother ensign. He plucks 
the veil from his hero. Sir Frederic, we learn from him, has been 
busy in this business — Sir Frederic set the 'Inquiry' afoot — Sir 
Frederic helped it with advice and with private papers — Sir 
Frederic made the first discoveries of the "fraud" — Sir Frederic 
sanctioned and encouraged the investigations which bring this 
scandal on the world of letters. In one place we are sufi"ered to 
peruse his private notes. In another place we are told the 
story of this Shakspeare investigation. The " Annotated Shak- 
speare," says the Preface, " was placed in Sir F. Madden's hands 
by the Duke of Devonshire. His independent examination of it 
completely convinced him of the fictitious character of the writing of 
the marginal corrections ; and this conclusion he freely communi- 
cated to inquirers interested in knowing it. The correspondence 
between certain pencil marks in the margins with corrections in 



ink, first noticed by myself, led him to a closer examination of the 
volume, and to the detection of numerous marks of punctuation and 
entire words in pencil, and in a modern character, in connexion 
with the pretended older writing in ink ; instances of which were 
subsequently found to occur on nearly every page. It was, 
moreover, owing in a great measure to Sir Frederic Maddens' 
encouragement that I was originally induced to bestow that atten- 
tion to the subject, which has developed the inquiry to its present 
results." 

Now we, too, should allow to Sir Frederic Madden a considerable 
share of learning and experience in his own department of palaeo- 
graphy ; yet with certain purchases for the Manuscript Depart- 
ment in our mind, we should most assuredly hesitate to place him 
high above all his fellows. Europe may have many a worthier son 
than he. We absolutely reject the ideathathis mere word suffices to 
authenticate or condemn a document. Sir Frederic may suffer him- 
self to be entreated of the minor deities of the Bloomsbury Olympus 
to assume the god ; but he will hardly brave the laughter of man- 
kind by affecting to give the nod. This is not a question to be 
settled even by a palaiographic Jove. Sir Frederic's view is known ; 
yet the dispute is not ended. Of the many gods in the British 
Museum, there is none so mighty and so awful as to calm the dis- 
cord in the literary spheres. 

The Reader, having found out ivlio are the assailants of 3Ir. 
Collier, will now seek to learn tuhy they are his assailants. The 
circumstances compel inquiry. A great literary attack — to all 
appearances conducted by one who declines the responsibility of 
failure while accepting beforehand A»y small gleam of credit which 
may grow out of success — and . ,xx-ied forward by the forces of a 
public institution, which from its neutral and gentle purpose, 
should be scrupulously guarded against the suspicion of bring used 
for personal and party ends — provokes some scrutiny into the 
motive power. Why should these officers of the British Museum 
assail Mr. Collier ? Every one will ask this question. Every one 
will get such answer to it as he can. AYc know that in starting 
such a query, a Reader may be nearing perilous ground. It is not 
his fault. If there be peril, it is not of his seeking. A very start- 
ling question comes before him. The names of four gentlemen of 
the British Museum are put in evidence against Mr. Collier ; other 
"friends and colleagues" of that establishment are cited to the same 
effect in muss Indeed, the whole body of scholars and gentlemen 
serving in the National Library are made — unconciously, and with- 
out their own consent, we verily believe — to appear as witnesses. 
To appear for what ? For the purpose, as it seems to us, of hinting 



8 

away the character of an aged scholar — of insinuating charges of 
fraud and forgery against a writer of blameless life — of inferentially 
suggesting accusations so vile and gross that a man of honour would 
scarcely whisper them to his own heart until the conclusive proofs 
were in his hand. When this is the array of things on one side, 
an impatient Reader will be driven to inquire if there be any con- 
ceivable reason why the officers of the British Museum should wage 
this cruel war on Mr. Collier ? Are they free from the suspicion of 
private passion ? Is there cause for this hostility other than the 
love of truth ? Has there been previous provocation of their wrath ? 
Do they owe Mr. Collier any ancient grudge. 

A Reader making these inquiries will be grieved to find that the 
officers of the British Museum, however gentlemanly and scholarly, 
however much above suspicion of personal motives in their ordinary 
acts and writings, are very far from standing above suspicion of 
personal hostility in the particular case of Mr Collier, The young 
gentleman who signs the Preface disclaims personal motives. We 
believe he does so in good faith. The motives of a man are often 
most abstruse, and the sources of love and hate are sometimes 
hidden even from those whose blood they warm and whose pens 
they guide. Grudge descends. In corporations as in families, the 
Vendetta has a long life. It is a matter of public notoriety that in 
the course of an active literary carreer, Mr. Collier has had more 
than one sharp brush with officers of the British Museum ; that by 
his opposition and by his writings he has given very deep offence 
in that institution. There was the Royal Commission of Inquiry, 
of which Mr. Collier was Secretary. There was the question of 
Catalogue. There were the 'Letters to Lord EUesmere.' It has 
been no secret in literary society for the past dozen years, that a 
most violent feeling of hostility to Mr. Collier existed in Great 
Russell Street. The Reader may not care to judge between the 
factions. Enough for him that there are factions. The disputes 
were chiefly personal. Who could make the best Catalogue ? Who 
could get together the best books ? Who could keep them in the 
best condition ? The officers in possession held their ground 
against Mr. Collier, and against his powerful friends the late Duke 
of Devonshire and the late Lord EUesmere. It is understood that 
these noblemen, and more especially Lord EUesmere, wished to put 
Mr. Collier at the head of the Museum. To this arrangement every 
man in the institution was averse ; for the rule of the Library is 
to rise by ranks ; and the introduction of an outside man of letters 
would not only seem to officers ambitious of higher place and better 
pay a slight to their service, but a bar to their promotion. The 
principle of putting a distinguished man of letters; over the heads 



9 

of officers trained to their work, may, on literary and moral grounds, 
be open to debate. The appointment of Prof. Owen is a case in point. 
But to the officers of the Library such a principle is simply detestable. 
Fill the high places of the Museum by men distinguished for their 
literary service, and the prospect of the junior officers are at onee 
closed. In Mr. Collier's case the battle was sharp. Yet the offi- 
cers of the institution held their own ; and from the subsequent 
growth and improvement in the Library, we may safely conclude 
that they held their own because they were thoroughly practical 
and sufficient men. We have no quarrel with the principle for 
which they fight. We like to sec men rise from the ranks. We 
like to reflect that every assistant in the Reading Room carries the 
staif of Principal in his knapsack. But a battle having taken 
place, the Reader will perceive that officers who are only mortal, 
may not be sorry to show that a gentleman who assailed their com- 
petency in years gone by, when the world was less with them than 
it is now, would have been no safe guardian of the national 
treasures. 

Reading all that the Manuscript Department has to say in the 
light of these old facts, the Reader will have no difficulty in passing 
to some very safe perceptions His first perception will be, that 
this book is very dear. He pays Mr. Bentiey for a volume, which, 
on examination, proves to be nearly all extract from newspapers, 
journals, and printed books of the commonest kind. In all our 
wide experience of compilations we know of no case to compare with 
this. There are nine pages of Preface, eleven about the corrected 
Folio, fourteen about odds and ends. That is all the original writing. 
Each page contains twenty-four lines, each line about seven words. 
The whole might occupy two pages of the AtJiencEum. The price 
is six shillings ? 

His next perception will be, that the pledge to substantiate the 
charges made against the Corrected Folio has been shirked. No 
attempt is made to redeem the plighted word The charges are 
repeated ; they are not proved. Italics are not arguments. Twenty 
assertions do not make one fact. It is not in a court of law, or in 
a court of criticism, that two witnesses who do not know can be 
allowed to weigh for one who does. The glib way in which our 
Manuscript Department passes by the Corrected Folio, is perfectly 
astounding. Look at the course throughout. The Manuscript 
Department announces in the newspapers a great discovery. The 
Old Corrector has been found a base impostor. Mr. Collier is a 
forger, or the dupe of a forger. The evidence for these assertions is 
said to be overwhelming. A pledge is given that this evidence 
shall be produced at once. Meanwhile the Folio is in the Manu- 



10 

script Department, and will be freely shown. A week passes, no* 
pamphlet. A^month, no pamphlet. Six months, no pamphlet. The 
world waits. The pamphlet gets written and printed ; fac-similes 
get drawn and distributed. It is in the press. But a hitch occurs. 
Mysterious whispers go about. There is a talic of lawyers consulted, 
of further investigation, of presumed facts melting away. Apolo- 
getic paragraphs creep into newspapers. The public are asked to be- 
lieve that the facts are proved ? A cry of sympathy and indignation 
swells from society against men who dare to make a frightful accu- 
sation against a living writer without being ready to produce what 
they at least may chose to consider their proofs of guilt. Another 
move is then made. Something must be done. It is not Mr Collier, 
it is the Manuscript Department which is now on trial. Again we 
hear that the book is coming But, lo I another change. Mr Bentley 
is now to be publisher. Mr. Bentley advertises, Mr. Bentley prints. 
The thing is ready for issue. This person has seen it, that person 
has read it. The world will have it to-morrow. This afternoon the 
editor of the At.henceiim shall positively have a copy. Even at the 
eleventh hour come more delays. Lawyers are again said to be 
consulting. Weeks pass by ; the work is always to appear on Mon- 
day. Saint Monday comes, not the book. At last there is a sort 
of clandestine publication ; the volume is out, and nobody knows of 
it. No copy comes to the AtJtemcum. Why is Mr. Bentley's 
usual course as publisher avoided ? We are not aware that Mr. 
Bentlc}", in his long and eminent career as a publisher, ever before 
omitted to send us a book of his on the day of issue. Why all this 
mystery ? Fancy a pamphlet that is to convince the literary world 
of an immense fraud having been perpetrated, being withheld from 
the literary journals I Does all this change of purpose, this delay, 
this suppression, bespeak the reader's favourable attention as to a 
conscientious writer dealino; with a iust cause ? 

,Now look at the contents for the proofs pledged to the world. 
We are called to a trial of the Old Corrector. This Old Corrector 
is a modern literary swindler. Mr. Collier, who believes in the 
Old Corrector, is a dupe or a knave. Hard words — very hard 
words, my masters ; but let us hear. We, at least, arc waiting 
for the truth. We pass into court, as the old upright judges say, 
with eyes and ears dead to the world. A great cause is in hand ; 
dismiss from your minds gentlemen of the jury, all that you may 
have read in newspapers, heard whispered in libraries ; give the 
defendant fair hearing and true judgment. Good But the pro- 
secution opens with a volley of charges not in the indictment I Will 
it seem credible that the prosecutor assumes his case ? Will it seem 
— we do not say decent — but even possible, that, in a few — very 
few — words, he should repeat his accusation of forgery and fraud ; 



11 

then triumphantly call on Mr. Collier, for his part, to prove his inno- 
cence ? Is the Manuscript Department in London or in Cork. 

The prosecutor rolls away from the one question before the court — 
the veracity of the Old Corrector — to Dulwich, to Bridgewater House, 
to the State Paper Office. This course of accusation is not only 
reckless, but ridiculous. It is the same thing as though Sydney 
were accused of not only writing the answer to Filmer, but of 
forging Magna Charta and the Constitutions of Clarendon • It is 
the same thing as if Montalembert had been charged, not only with 
publishing the Debate on India, but with robbing a church, or with 
false dealing in the funds. We see no ground on which these new 
insinuations can be justified. By and by we shall show that they are 
false — absolutely and beyond conception false. But were they 
doubtful, it would be sin against English dealing to bring them for- 
ward. We do not suffer even a criminal to be tried on one count, 
judged on another. In no conceivable court of justice would this 
drivelling on from charge to charge be suff"ered. You do not prove 
a hind guilty of rick-firing by asserting that he has also possibly 
robbed a barn. Prove one count. You must not dream that you 
strengthen an unsupported accusation by hinting at your eagerness 
to bring forward a second unsupported accusation. The reader 
who finds you rambling off" from your own distinct pledge to produce 
proofs of forgery and fraud in the case of the Old Corrector, will 
conclude, and rightly conclude, that you wander from your point 
because you have no confidence in your case. 

When we drop down to details, we are even more dissatisfied 
with the way in which our Manuscript Department has dealt with 
this Charge against the Old Corrector. 

Look at these lithographs. Will any man who ever scrawls with 
a pencil say that Mr. Netherclift's copies of the dots and words in 
any way suggest pencil scratches ? How can you reproduce pencil 
marks by ink ? Our Manuscript Department has capped Mr. Rus- 
kin's marvellous feat of showing that artists cannot draw a lion by 
exhibiting to the world a picture of an ill-drawn tiger. Ink lines 
are sharp in form, black in tint. Pencil lines are vague. Neither 
do we think Mr. Netherclift's copies faithful to the spirit of the 
originals. We have seen those originals, when the Folio was shown 
at the Society of Antiquaries, and more recently, when it was depo- 
sited with Sir Frederic Madden, and we reluctantly, but with no 
fear, pronounce these pretended fac-similes worthies for the one 
great end for which they have been made — that of assisting readers 
unacquainted with the Manuscript corrections to any true judg- 
ment of the relative characters of the ink writing and the pencil 
marks. 



12 

We now come to the text. Here we find three arguments pro- 
duced to damn Mr. Collier and his Old Corrector. These three 
arguments we will state in words to which even our Manuscript 
Department shall not be able to object. They stand in order of im- 
portance thus : — 1. That under the ink writing of the Folio there 
exists pencil writing in a more modern hand. 2. That the cor- 
rections are far more numerous than Mr. Collier represents them 
to be. 3. That no one ever saw the corrections in the Folio until 
it had been for some years in Mr Collier's possession, and that it 
is beyond belief that Mr. Rodd should have sold such a copy of 
Shakspeare for thirty shillings. Now in each of these three cases 
the answer is so precise — so crushing — that in pure good will we 
throw in the additional argument (4.) of the text-word, not here 
used, but on which an infinite deal of nothing has been said 
elsewhere. 

1. In the first place, it is said that under the ink writing of the 
Folio certain pencil marks are visible, It is said that with the 
naked eye sometimes, with a microscope maay times, these pencil 
marks may be clearly seen to underlie the ink writing. If so, 
there is reason to conclude that the ink writing is at least as modern 
as the pencil writing. Find, therefore, a date for the pencilling 
and you may pretty safely fix a date for the writing. The test of 
spelling is adopted. The test of hand-writing, as every one who 
knows manuscript is aware, is extremely deceptive. But, spelling 
is supposed by our Manuscript Department to be evidence, 
Spelling of the word "body" is taken as a sure test. This word is 
found in the Folio written in pencil •' body" — written in ink 
" bodie." Now, Bodie says our Manuscript Department, is an old 
form, Body a now form of the word. Ergo, the rascal who 
wrote " bodie" in ink upon " body" in pencil must have been a 
very recent rascal — " still alive" is the charitable supposition, — 
and his adoption of the ancient spelling in his ink is neither more 
nor less than a fraudulent mystification. To show how much is 
made of this argument, we must quote the very words of its tri- 
umphant discoverer : — 

" I now come to the most astounding results of these in- 
vestigations, in comparison with which all other facts concerning 
the corrected folio become insignificant. On a close examination 
of the margins they are found to be covered with an infinite num- 
ber of faint pencil marks and corrections, in obedience to which the 
supposed old corrector has made his emendations. These pencil 
corrections have not even the pretence of antiquity in character or 
spelling, but are written in a bold hand of the present century. A 
remarkable instance occurs in 'Kichard III.' (fol. 1632, p. 181, col. 



13 

2), where the stage direction, 'with the body,' is written in pencil 
ill a clear modern hand, while over this the ink corrector writes in 
the antique and smaller character, ' with the dead bodie,' the word 
' dead' being seemingly inserted to cover over the entire space 
occupied by the larger pencil writing, and 'bodie' instead of 'body' 
to give the requisite appearance of antiquity." 

Now, we feel some shame in having the task thrust on us of 
deliverino; the obvious answer to a statement of this singular sort 
made by gentlemen holding a good position in a public library. If 
a youth under examination for a clerkship in the Customs had given 
such a reason for his want of faith in the Old Corrector, we cannot 
doubt that he would have been incontinently sent back to his 
Primer. Indeed, the ignorance of books which such an argument 
pre-supposes is in our days perfectly astounding. 

If the gentlemen who advance this argument had read for its 
support no more of Shakspearian literature than every man pre- 
tending to cultivation in our day reads for his instruction and 
delight, they would have seen that in this matter of spelling their 
pleadings pass to the defendant's side. They would have known 
that Body is the ancient form of this word, that Bodie is a com- 
paratively modern innovation. The youngest reader who has 
turned over the leaves of his old family i^ible is aware that up to 
Elizabeth's time and beyond it the word is spelt Body. In Tyn- 
dale it is Body — in Cranmer it is Body or Bodye — in the Genevan 
version it is Body — in the Rheims it is Body. It is the same in 
secular writings. It is Body in Caxton's ' Gouernayle of Helthe' 
— Body in Chaucer's ' Canterbury Tales' — Body in Gower's ' Con- 
fessio Amantis' — Body in Spencer's 'Fairy Queen ' In the first 
edition of Bacon's 'Advancement of Learning' (1605) it is spelt 
Body— in the first edition of Raleigh's 'History of the World' ( I 614) 
it is spelt Body — in the 1616 edition of Ben Johnson's 'Every Man 
in his Humour' it is spelt Body. In the 'Hamlet' of 1604 the word 
is spelt Body no less than fifteen times — once by a printer's fault, 
Bodie. About the time of Shakspeare's death the fashion began to 
change. Yet, for twenty or thirty years, the mode of spelling was 
considered indifferent. In the Geneva Bible of 1611 the word is 
Body in St. Matthew, Body in St. Mark, mainly Body in St. 
Luke, sometimes Bodie in St John. In the Book of Common 
Prayer, we read Body in the editions of 155*2, 1604, 1637 and 1662. 
In the reig-n of Charles the Second Bodie became a usual form. A 
corrector, therefore, writing in the time of Charles the First would be 
pretty sure to have written Body. A corrector in the time of Charles 
the Second would as certainly have written Bodie. These facts are 
no discoveries of ours. They are known to boys and girls. Why 
are they not known at the British Museum ? 



14 

There is one thing more astounding in this matter than the gross 
ignorance ; that is, the offensive carelessness or haste. The 
gentlemen who bring this charge against Mr. Collier have not read 
yhakspeare himself. Why, in the very Shakspeare Folio under their 
Microscopes the word "Body" occurs more than 200 times. 
How is it spelt there ? Body — mainly, if not uniformly Body I — in 
letters as plain as pike-staves I Whatbecomes of the preposterous 
induction that the ink writing must be modern because it similates 
ancient spelling upon more modern pencil marks ? 

2. The second argument adduced to sustain the charge of forgery 
is, that Mr. Collier has reproduced in his books an incomplete List 
of the Old Corrector's emendations. We are not quizzing. The 
Manuscript Department, fancying this a reason on its side, takes a 
vast deal of pains to establish the circumstance beyond dispute. 
No less than twenty -two pages of emendations are given from the 
Folio as example ; not half ot which, we are assured, are known to 
Mr. Collier. We accept the proof. We do so without even seeing 
the Folio. Is not the knowledge of logic on a par with the 
knowledge of books ? Why the assertion proves that the gentlemen 
of the Museum have made a much closer scrutiny of the Folio with 
their microscopes than Mr. Collier with his unsuspecting eyes. 
They know the ticks and dots, the "scratches and erasures, far 
better than he. That is all. Because Mr. Collier has overlooked 
a great number of marks in the Folio, how in the name of sense 
does it follow that he must have had a finger in their fabrication ? 
Explain me that, Hal 1 

A candid Reader will see that such a circumstance is a very 
strong plea in bar of the judgment here pronounced. Would not a 
forger know what he had forged ? Would a commentator, even 
supposing him capable of the moral guilt of forgery, fabricate be- 
yond his need ? Would the coiner risk his neck and forget to pass 
his gold ? Nothing less than the perversity of passion could blind 
the compilers of this charge to the fact, that in proving the 
abundance of unappropriated hints in the Old Corrector they aie 
proving Mr. Collier's perfect innocence of any acquaintance with 
the resources cf that personage. 

3. The third argument is very gross. It is one that no gentleman 
need refute. To make it is an offence against good manners ; for it 
amounts in effect to a threat that if Mr. Collier shall be unable to 
prove that the corrections were in the Folio when he bought it, he 
will be held guilty of their fabrication. Such a doctrine is per- 
fectly frightful. Yet it most fortunately happens that through 
accidental circumstances Mr. Collier is able to prove, by the evi- 
dence of a witness of the very highest credit, that the Folio while 



15 

it was yet in Mr. Rodd's possession was seen to be full of 
emendations. The turning up of this evidence in the very hour of 
need is almost romantic. Mr. Collier hears that a gentleman and 
a scholar of the hiorhest attainments and distinction had seen and 

o 

described the Folio to his friends. He naturally wrote to ask for 
such particulars as the gentleman might remember after a lapse of 
so many years. To his delight he received from the Rev. Dr. 
Wellesley, the respected principal of New Inn Hall, Oxford, the 
following most important and decisive testimony : 

" Woodmancote Rectory, Hurstperpoint, 
" August 13th, lb59. 

" Sir, — Although I do not recollect the precise date, 1 remember 
some years ago being in the shop of Thomas Rodd on one occasion 
when a case of books from the country had just been opened. One 
of these books was an imperfect folio Shakspeare, with an abun- 
dajicc of manuscript notes in the marghis. He observed to me 
that it was of little value to Collectors as a copy, and that the 
price was thirty shillings. I should have taken it myself ; but, as he 
stated that he had put it by for another customer, I did not continue 
to examine it, nor di^J I think more about it, until I heard afterwards 
that it had been found to possess great literary curi sity and value. 
In all probability, Mr. Eodd named you to me. but whether he or 
others did so the affair was generally spoken of at the time, and I 
never heard it doubted that you had become the possessor of the 
book I am. Sir, your faithful and obedient servant. 

"H. Wellesley." 

"To J. P. Collier, Esq." 

This evidence, from the hand of the Principal of New Inn Hall, 
disperses and destroys for ever the gross insinuations against Mr 
Collier's personal honour. 

4. There remains, as respects the Old Corrector, the mystery of 
who he was and when he lived. Those who think he is still alive 
bring forward what they call a Test Word. This test word will be 
found as weak as the the test spelling. The argument proceeds 
upon the assumption that the word "cheer," introduced by the Old 
Corrector into the text of' Coriolanus,' is, in the seuse there given 
to it, a word of modern growth — not older, says Mr. Ingleby, than 
1808. To this assertion the reply is brief The word was cer- 
tainly in use in the time of Charles the Second in the sense given 
to it by the Old Corrector. Examples from one book will serve as 
well as from twenty. In ' The iary of Henry Teonge, Chaplain 
on board His Majesty's Ships Assistance, Bristol and Royal Oak, 
anno 1675, to 1679,' we read at page 14, this passage : — " As 



16 

soone as the boate was put oflf from the ship, wee honour their de- 
parture with 3 ciiEARES, 7 gunns and our trumpets sounding." 
The word oc3urrs seven other times in Teonge, and in precisely 
the sense in which it is used in ' Coriolanus.' So passes into air 
the last vestige of proof yet adduced against the antiquity and 
genuineness of the Old Corrector. 

Pass we now from the wreck of all these arguments to a short con- 
sideration of the insinuations of minor crimes against Mr. Collier, 
Havingfailed most signally to prove, on their own selected ground, 
that the party on trial had been a rogue on one occasion, it would 
seem to have occurred to the gentlemen of the Manuscript Depart- 
ment that the abominable charge might be made to pass under a 
general imputation that he had always been a rogue. Three other 
charges are thereupon insinuated against Mr. Collier. 

Let us look at these insinuations one by one. First, there is the 
case of the Bridgewater House documents. All the world knows 
that the late Earl of Kllesmere allowed Mr. Collier to inspect the 
papers of his family ; that Mr. Collier published a volume of selec- 
tions from these for the Camden Society. Among the family 
papers were several documents of extremely great interest for the 
history of Shakspeare, and his times. Mr. Collier, who believed 
them to be ancient and genuine, published them. Some persons 
doubted, and still doubt, whether these documents are genuine. 
We ourselves have doubts ; tliDugli we are far from agreeing with 
Manuscript Department that they are " modern forgeries." We 
are now told by the gentlemen, who pronounce on the Folio without 
having read it, that they are in the t-ame handwriting as the Folio 
corrections. Lord Ellesmere, the present Earl, is of a very different 
mind. In a note which Mr. Collier cites, Lord Ellesmere says: — 
" There is no pretence whatever for saying that the emendations in 
the Perkins Shakspeare are in the same handwriting as those in 
my first folio : on the contrary, except as they are (or profess to be) 
of the same period, they are quite different." Some careful fac- 
similes of these Bridgewater documents lie before us ; and we 
confess that we agree with the Earl. We see no reason for pro- 
nouncing the two hands to be the same. In fact, we should refuse 
to do any such thing There is the faint resemblance which exists 
between all Italian writing of the seventeenth century ; certainly 
not more. The difference between both and Mr. Collier's own 
hand is organic. Why — against the opinions of Lord Ellesmere — 
is this case insinuated.^ Mr. Collier believes in tha genuineness of 
these Bridgewater papers. But supposing he is wrong in this 
belief — is credulity a crime ? 

We are now whisked off to Dulwich ; where we are told, that a 



17 

letter of Mrs. Alleyn's, in which Mr. Collier found the name of 
Shakspeare, no longer contains that name. The letter is rotten 
and torn ; it is torn and worn in the place where the name of Shak- 
speare occurred. The disappearance is natural enough ; and the 
Manuscript Department seems to attach no very great importance 
to the loss. The idea of forgery in such a case is inconceivable. 
The name was found, but no fact of any sort was added to the life. 
A forger forges to some end. No coiner ever yet risked his life 
for the pleasure of making button tops. 

We now arrive at the last and most extraordinary charge in this 
extraordinary volume It is here distinctly insinuated that some 
person not named — but plainly pointed to — has committed the 
enormous offence of forging a State Paper. Here we get on such 
very dangerous ground that we must quote the indictment in the 
words of those who have drawn it up We only need premise 
that the document in (][uestion is the well-known Petition of the 
Players in 1596. We read : — 

*' It is preserved in her Majesty's State Paper Office, bears upon 
it the official stamp of that office, and forms one of a collection of 
public papers of undoubted genuineness. Yet there can belittle 
question that it belongs to the same set of forgeries as those al- 
ready investigated : that by some means, yet to be traced, it has 
been surreptitiously introduced among the Kecords where it is now 
found ; and in the course of official routine has received with the 
rest the stamp of authenticity A fac-simile of it is given by Mr. 
Halliwell, in his folio Shakspere, 1853, (vol. i. p. 137), who states 
that it was discovered by Mr. Collier in the State Paper Office ; 
and Mr. Collier prints it in his 'Annals of the Stage' (1831), with 
the following notice: — ' This remarkable Paper has, perhaps, never 
seen the light from the moment it was presented, until it was 
very recently discovered. It is seven years anterior to the date 
of any other authentic record which contains the name of our 
great dramatist.' This petition bears no date, and is written on 
half a sheet of foolscap paper, without water-mark, and which, from 
the appearance of the edges, I should think had probably once 
formed the fly-leaf of some folio volume. A supposed date of 1596 
has been placed upon it in pencil by one of the gentlemen in the 
State Paper Office. Its execution is very neat, and with any one 
not minutely acquainted with the fictitious hand of these Shakspeare 
forgeries it might readily pass as genuine. But an examination of 
the handwriting generally, the forms of some of the letters in par- 
ticular, and the spurious appearance of the ink, led me to the belief 
not only that the paper was not authentic, but that it had been 
executed hy the same hand as the fictitious documents already dis- 

2 



18 

cussed. This conviction I made known to the Right Hon. the Mas- 
ter of the Rolls, who was good enough to direct an official inquiry 
into the authenticity of the document. In accordance with this 
direction, on the 30th of January, Sir Francis Palgrave, Deputy 
Keeper of Public Records, T. Duifus Hardy, Esq., Assistant 
Keeper of Public Records, and Professor Brewer, Reader at the 
Rolls, met Sir Frederic Madden and myself for the purpose of in- 
vestigation, and after a minute and careful examination the following 
unanimous decision luas arrived at as to the fact of its undoubtedly 
spurious character. — 

* We, the undersigned, at the desire of the Master of the Rolls, 
have carefully examined the documents hereunto annexed, purport- 
ing to be a petition to the Lords of her Majesty's Privy Council, 
from Thomas Pope, Richard Burbadge, John Hemings, Augustine 
Phillips, William Shakespeare, William Kempe, William Slye, 
Nicholas Tooley, and others, in answer to a petition from the In- 
habitants of the Liberty of the Blackfriars, and we are of 
opinion that the document in questisn is spurious. 

'30th January, 1860. 

* Fra Palgrave, K. H., Deputy -Keeper of H.M. Public Records . 
'Fredreic Madden, K. H., Keeper of the 3ISS., British 

Museum. 
' J. S. Brewer, M A., Reader at the Rolls. 
' T. DuFFUs Hardy, Assistant-Keeper of Records. 
*N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Assistant Dep. of MSS., British 
Museum.' 
' I direct this paper to be appended to the undated decument 
now last in the Bundle, marked 222, Eliz. 1596. 

' 2 February, 1660. 

' John Romilly, Master of the Rolls.' 

— So far, then, as relates to this document, the question must be 
considered as set at rest ; and it is almost unnecessary to point out 
the weight of the decision, not alone in regard to this condemned 
forgery, but in respect of its bearing upon the other writings here 
treated of. Before a new edition of Shakspeare is issued, or a new 
life of Shakspeare written, it will be necessary that the whole of the 
hitherto supposed basis of the Poet's history should be rigorously 
examined, and no effort spared to discover the perpetrator of that 
treason against the Majesty of English Literature, which it has 
been my object to denounce." 

This passage, every one will say, has at first a most ugly look. 
Sir John Romilly's name — Mr. Duffus Hardy, Sir Francis Pal- 
grave — documents solemnly put before a jury of scholars — examined 
by them, unhesitatingly condemned as spurious by them — all this 



19 

seems like dreadful, earnest fact. On looking closer into the affair 
the darkness begins to pale. Indeed, the result of inquiry will not 
a little, we should think, surprise and perplex the gentlemen who 
have throughout the attack on Mr. Collier chosen to argue from 
particulars to generals — to derive from the similarity of handwriting 
in several documents, an argument in proof of their fabrication by 
one hand. 

On reading the passage, we are at first struck by the singular 
ftict that a judge, sitting in one of our courts of law, should in the 
discharge of a secondary duty of his high place, have made himself 
a party, even in appearance, or by implication, in a personal attack 
which may possibly lead to a judicial investigation. Such a course 
is not usual with our judges. Such a course is peculiarly opposed 
to the spirit of Sir John Romilly's public life. From what we know 
of Sir John, we feel convinced that, when permitting the scrutiny 
which has taken place into the genuineness of this Player's Petition, 
he was not sufficiently aware of the fact that his permission and his 
signature would be instantly used for the purpose of publicly hint- 
ing away the good name of an honourable man. 

We are next arrested by the singular circumstance that the 
gentlemen who pronounce on the spuriousness of this document are 
not its proper custodians. Why is the paper taken from the State 
Paper Office to the Record Office ? Why are the experienced keep- 
ers of the Slate Papers not made parties to the certificate ? Do they 
refuse to sign ? It is clear beyond cavil that they must be the best 
judges of such things. Fiom their youth they have been familiar 
with the handwriting of the seventeenth century. They know the 
marks and stamps of their office. They are, therefore, abler to 
pronounoe on the genuineness of a particular State Paper of the 
Elizabethan era, than any outside person, however eminent. Mr. 
Duffus Hardy and Sir Francis Palgrave are undoubtedly most able 
critics of the Gothic handwriting of the tenth and twelfth centuries. 
We are not aware of their accomplishments in that respect for later 
times. Mr. Brewer is a most able man, but he is an amateur, so to 
speak. Sir Frederic Madden is out of court. The want of decency 
which allowed Mr. Hamilton to set his name to such a certificate is 
simply deplorable. It is not the custom in our time for a man 
acting as public prosecutor, to thrust himself first into the jury-box, 
and then on to the bench. The opinions of Mr. Lechmere or of 
Mr. Lemon on the probable date and genuine character of the Play- 
er's Petition, would have had far more weight with Shakspearian 
scholars than the certificate signed by these five. We are our- 
selves perfectly familar with that Petition — and with thousands of 
similar documents of its assumed date — yet we confess ourselves 



20 

utterly unable to perceive the grounds from which its spuriousnesS 
has been inferred by the five gentlemen whose names we have given. 
So far as we know, this opinion of ours is shared by every 
capable and independent Shakspearian scholar. Mr. Dyce believes 
the petition genuine. Mr. Charles Knight believes it genuine. 
Mr. Halliwell believes it genuine . Mr. Singer and Mr. Lloyd believe 
it genuine. We have no reason to suppose that any of the expe- 
rienced officers of the State Paper Office consider it other than 
genuine. 

This point, however, may be safely reserved for future con- 
troversy. It will come up again ; for the Player's Petition is one 
of the very few Shaksperian documents which remain to us. Its 
light will not be readily given up. What we have now to deal with 
is the more personal question — the big black imputation on the 
honesty of a particular scholar. 3Ir. Collier is said to have dis- 
covered this Petilion; it is hinted, as the Eeader will have seen, in 
no vague terms, that he may have fabricated it for purposes of 
literary fraud. Now, will it be thought credible, that the gentlemen 
of a public institution — gentlemen accustomed to the charge of 
manuscripts — gentlemen engaged in hunting a particular document, 
branded by themselves as spurious, to Mr. Collier's door, should 
never once have thought of making the pfeliminary inquiry — whe- 
ther thai Player's Petition was, or was not, known to be in Her 
Majesty's State Paper Office before Mr. Collier's researches first 
began ? Such a question would seem to lie at^the threshold of their 
inquiry. It is certain that, had they made the inquiry, they would 
have been saved from an awful mistake. The easy and ready answer 
to that question sweeps the ground on which they have chosen to 
stand in their whole case clean away from beneath their feet. 
Merely for our reader's guidance, we have thought good to enter 
into the correspondence which we now produce : — 

(Copy.) 

"Athenaeum Office, Feb. 13, 1660. 

" The Editor of the Athenamm presents his compliments to 
Mr. Lemon, and, referring to the Petition of the Players — contained 
in the bundle of papers in the State Paper Office marked * Bundle 
No 222, Elizabeth, 1596,' a copy of which has been printed in text 
by Mr. Collier and in fac-simile by Mr. Halliwell, — takes the liberty 
of inquiring whether, within Mr. Lemon's knowledge, that Petition 
of the Players was in the State Paper Office before Mr. Collier began 
his researches in that Office 1 An early answer will oblige. 

Mr. Lemon most obligingly answered this note by return of post : — 

" state Paper Office, Feb. 14, 1860. 

" Dear Sir, — In reply to your question, I beg to state that the 



^1 

Petition of the Players of the Blackfriars Theatre, alluded to in 
jour note, was well known to my father and myself, before Mr. 
Payne Collier began his researches in this Office. I am pretty con- 
fident that my father himself brought it under the notice of Mr. Col- 
lier, in whose researches he took great interest. — I am very faith- 
fully yours, 11. Lemon. 

" The Editor of the Athenaeum." 

Where now is the Manuscript Department's house of cards ? 
What becomes of all the inferential evidence — all the dogmatic 
assertion — in favour of forgery established by the fact of a common 
handwriting ? Here is proof — official, incontrovertible proof — that 
one of the documents forged, as the Manuscript Department has it, 
by the same hand, could notby any earthly possibility have been fa- 
bricated by Mr. Collier. Ergo, none of ths papers in the same hand 
could have been the work of Mr. Collier. Neither the Old Cor- 
rector's Emendations nor the Bridgewater House Letters, can on 
this hypothesis, be any longer susceptible of a reference to him. 
The assailants of the Old Corrector have unintentionally proved too 
much. They have chosen to stand on the argument of accunmla- 
tion, By the argument of accumulation they now fall. 



THE IMPUTED SHAKSPEARE FORGERIES. 
Mr. J. Payne Gollief^ Rejilij. 

Maidenhead, Feb. 14. 

After, a delay of more than seven months, Mr. N. E. S. A. 
Hamilton, as the mouthpiece of the Manuscript Authorities of the 
British Museum, has published his pamphlet against me. I began 
to be almost afraid that it would not appear at all, or at least dur- 
ing my life, while I could vindicate my own conduct and charac- 
ter ; for, at the age to which I have arrived, no man can calculate 
upon having much time to spare. I am thankful for my continued 
health, and for the non-impairment of any of my faculties, if only 
because I am thus able to meet, and, in most important particu- 
lars to confute, the various calumnies with which I have been 
assailed. 

The manner in which I have pursued, especially since I com- 
mitted the great offence of discovering the Corrected Folio of 
Shakespeare's Works, 1032, only shows how small a reputation in 
an inferior department of literature is sufficient to secure the bit- 
terest hostility. That hostility reached its climax when a noble 



22 

and learned Lord did me the honor to address to me a small lucu- 
bration on the legal acquirements of our great dramatist. Lord 
Campbell's letter to me appeared in the beginning of 1859, and 
in May of that year, Sir Frederic Madden procured the loan of 
the Perkins Folio (so I shall hereafter call it for the sake of bre- 
vity) from His Grace the present Duke of Devonshire. 

Having obtained it, Mr. N. E S. A. Hamilton, one of Sir F. 
Madden's junior assistants, " seized the opportunity" (his own 
words) of subjecting the volume to the strictest examination. In 
this undertaking he was avowedly aided by Sir F. Madden and 
by Mr. Maskelyne, of the Mineral Department, who bronght for 
their use a microscope bearing the imposing and scientific name 
of the Simonides Uranius. They must give me leave to say that 
they applied to the book even a more powerful moral magnifier, 
which too many literary, antagonists have at their command. 

The result of this and other scrutinies (from which it should 
seem I was purposely excluded) has been the tract now before me, 
which, by reprints and by various other expedients,"^' has been 
swelled to the bulk of 155 pages, and which I take the present 
mode of answering, in some haste, in order to counteract pre-judg- 
ment by those who are not acquainted w'ith many of the real facts 
of the cnse. Excepting, however, in its unimportant Appendixes, 
Mr. Hamilton's ' Inquiry' contains little beyond what he inserted 
in his letters printed in the Times as long since as July last. 

Those Letters could not fail to attract much public attention, 
and as it was urged, among other things, that my account of the 
purchase of the Perkins Folio was "highly unsatisfactory," it seems 
to have met the eye of the Principal of New Inn Hall, Oxford, 
who, by his own testimony, was fortunately able, in all essentia 
particulars, to confirm my statement, I bought the book of Kodd, 
the bookseller, in 1849, for 305 , not being then aware, nor till 
long afterwards, that it contained a single MS. note. The implied, 
almost the expressed, imputation was, that in 1849 it was actually 
without notes, but that I, being skilled in the imitation of old writ- 
ing, had subsequently inserted them, and had passed them ofi" as 
ancient emendations of the text of Shakespeare. It so happened, 
that just after I had left Rodd's, and had secured my pur- 
chase by paying for it, leaving the volume to be sent home, the 
Rev. Dr. H. Wellesley entered the shop, looked at the book, and 

* One of these expedients has been the occupation of no fewer than twentj'-two pages 
with the 01(1 Corrector's emendations of ' Hamlet,' all that were really important having 
been pointed out eight yeai's ago. What bearing this useless rei)etition can have upon the 
question of authenticity, it would puzzle abler men than Mr. Hamilton to explain. His 
real object was only to prove my omissions ; but I purposely excluded many merely literal 
errors and changes, which Mr. Hamilton thinks worthy of record. This is a testimony in 
favour of the Old Corrector which I little expected. 



23 

seeing the MS. notes, which I had not seen, wished to become the 
possessor. Rodd informed Dr. Weliesley that the old folio had 
been already sold for the very price I had given for it ; and it was 
mentioned to me in August last, that Dr. Weliesley had openly 
stated this circumstance, I therefore took the liberty, though a 
perfect stranger, of writing to Dr. Weliesley for such particulars 
as he could recollect after the lapse of about ten years. He kindly 
lost no time in replying to my note, dating from his rectory at 
Woodmancote, Sussex; and if my account of the mode in which I 
obtained the Perkins Folio, have been " highly unsatisfactory" to 
my enemies, it may be reasonably doubted whether Dr. Welles- 
ley's substantial confirmation of that account will be more accept- 
able. It is as follows : — 

" Woodmancote Rectoi-v, Huvstperpoint, 
"August 13th, 1859, 

" Sir, — Although T do not recollect the precise date, I remem- 
ber some years ago being in the shop of Thomas Rodd on one oc- 
casion when a case of books from the country had just been open- 
ed. One of those books was an mtj^erfect folio Shakesj^eare, ivith an 
abundance of manuscript notes in the margins. He observed to 
me that it was of little value to Collectors as a copy, and thai 
the pj'ice icas thirty shillings. I should have taken it myself; 
but, as he stated that he had put it by for another customer, I did 
not continue to examine it, nor did I think any more about it, until I 
heard afterwards that it had been found to possess great literary cu- 
riosity and value. In all probability, Mr. Rodd named you to me, 
but whether he or others did so, the aiFair was generally spoken of 
at the time, and I never heard it doubted that you had become the 
possessor of the book. I am. Sir, your faithful and obedient 
servant, H. Welle.sley." 

"To J. P. Collier, Esq." 

I apprehend that the above note will at once put an end to the 
discreditable insinuations (if they amount to no more) that I am 
the real author of the MS. notes in the Perkins Folio. They were 
all in the margins of the volume when it came into my hands in 
1849, although, from causes I explained, I was not aware of their 
existence till some time afterwards. When I wrote the Preface to 
the second edition of my ' Notes and Emendations,' octavo, 1853, I 
felt satisfied that I should be able to carry back the history of the 
book nearly half a century earlier by the evidence of a gentleman 
of the name of Parry, who, on seeing the fac-simile which had 
fronted the title-page of the first edition of 1852, had instantly de- 
clared that he recognized the handwriting of the MS. notes, and 
that the very book containing them had been in his possession very 



24 

many years before. It is needless here to repeat the particular 
contents of my l*reface, which I showed to Mr. Parry before it was 
printed off, and which he entirely approved. Owing to the late 
date at which I had heard of his recognition of the volume by its 
notes, and to a slight accident which had befallen him, I was not 
able to exhibit to him the Folio itself until after the Preface had 
been worked off; but I distinctly state, in the most positive man- 
ner, that very soon after it was so worked off I took the Perkins 
Folio with me to St, John's Wood, where Mr. Parry resided, and 
showed it to him, both inside and outside. I met him coming from 
the house, and, owing to his temporary lameness, he was walking 
with a stick (not with sticks, as Mr. Parry states, and least of all 
with crutches, as Mr. Hamilton wishes to make out), which stick I 
held for him, while he looked at the volume I had brought : he 
turned over the leaves in several places, and I am very sure looked 
also at the cover, and returned the Folio to me, while I handed 
him back his stick. Upon these points I cannot be mistaken, 
though Mr. Parry seems to have forgotten ihem (he is a man of 
about my own age, and I heartily wish that his memory were as good 
as mine), and within a very few days after I had seem him I made 
the following memorandum, which I now extract from the margin 
of my own copy of ' ^'otes and Emendatiens,' 8vo. 1853 : — 

" I afterwards showed him [Mr. Parry] the book itself, and hav- 
ing looked at it in several places, he said. This ivasmy hook : it is 
the same, hut it has heen oniich misused since it ivas i?i my pos- 
sessio?i." 

This note was inserted about seven years ago, and I cannot be 
more sure of anything than of the correctness of the information it 
contains. I impute no blame to Mr. Parry : I have no personal 
acquaintance with him beyond what I have stated, but 1 believe 
him to be a man of honour and probity, and he is known to per- 
sons for whom I have the highest respect and esteem. When he 
went to the British Museum and saw Sir F. Madden, 3Ir. Hamil- 
ton, Mr. Maskelyne and others, he may have become confused, and 
they may have passed and re-passed the different folios of Shake- 
speare before his eyes until he did not remember which edition had 
been his own : to me he always said that his annotated folio was 
of the date of 1632. Several living members of my family (to say 
nothing of the dead) can prove that, when I returned from St. 
John's Wood, I said that I had seen Mr. Parry, and that he had 
recognized the Perkins Folio as an old friend. 

However, independently of Mr. Parry's evidence, which would 
have traced the MS. emendations to the very commencement of 
the present century, Dr. AVellesley's note establishes beyond dis- 



25 

pute that they were in the volume when I purchased it of Eodd, 
in 1849. 

A great deal has been said about pencil marks, and here again 
my enemies have been so charitable as to assign them to me. Mr. 
Hamilton, in his * Inquiry,' has given a fac-simile of some that best 
answered his purpose, and in a manner that best answered his 
purpose. I never saw them, and they were never seen by anybody 
(not even by the lithographer who made for me no fewer than 
nineteen facsimiles from every part of the book) until the Per- 
kins Folio had found its way to the British Museum. There, and 
there only, they originated, I mean of course the discovery of 
them ; and Mr. Hamilton and his friends have displayed wonderful 
ingenuity in construing, what they often admit to be mere specks 
and points of blumbago, into continuous lines and even into com- 
plete words. Tt is enough for me to assert, most unequivocally, 
that I never introduced one of them ; and it is singular that the late 
Duke of Devonshire, whom I have seen day after day looking over 
the emendations, and calling in the assistance of my eyes and 
and spectacles, never once observed that they existed. 

]5ut the Manuscript x\uthorities of the British Museum have 
proceeded with their eyes open ; they, indeed, in some respects, 
have had eyes where other folks are blind, but they have not at- 
tended to the warning given by those who were not so bent on 
making out fraud or imposition that they were only discovering a 
mare's nest. The truth seems to be, that latterly they have begun 
to feel that they have little chance of proving their accusation. 
Hence much of the delay that has occurred in the publication of 
their pamphlet, to which such a dignified shape has been given : 
they have been hunting in every direction, and searching in every 
hole and corner for something to support and bolster up their fall- 
ing accusation. They have gone back, not only ten, but twenty, 
thirty, and almost forty years, to find scraps of information that 
might lead to the supposition that 1 was not always as scrupulous as 
could be wished in my literary dealir:gs. There ;, is not an atom of 
foundation for any such imputation. I have always been a hard- 
working man, and I have sometimes been employed upon what, if 
I could, I would have avoided. For many years I seldom went to 
bed until other people were rising, and how much I have worked 
gratuitously for friends and Societies I need not say Do people 
think, then, that I have had time, not only to acquire one form of 
old writing, but many, to manufacture inks and secretly to practise 
all the arts of imposition ? I never tried it in my life, but I am 
confident it is no such easy thing to imitate even one kind of old 
writing, much less to imitate many. I have had too much to do 



26 

with my own plain round English hand (from which I never, even 
for a playful purpose, attempted to vary) to be able to devote my 
time to the manufacture of public or private documents, and, as in 
the case of the Perkins Folio, to fill a volume of about a thousand 
pages, with innumerable notes, to say nothing of changes of punc- 
tuation in tens of thousands of places. 

Neither have I ever enjoyed facilities absolutely necessary to 
such elaborate trickery. In live out of the eight houses I have 
occupied, since I married forty-five years ago, I never had a study 
to myself: my wife, children and servants were too numerous to 
allow of it. The common eating-room was therefore my common 
writing-room ; and when I have had a study, I defy the world to 
show an instance in which I ever turned the key of the door to 
prevent intrusion : everybody was admitted at all hours. I had 
no secrets : my wife opened and read every letter I received ; and 
in my study was always kept a chest of drawers to which the fam- 
ily had constant access for some of the most ordinary requirements 
of a household. Therefore, upon nobody could this charge of for- 
gery against me have come with more astonishment than upon my 
children ; and if my wife had lived, I think it would have killed 
her to have known that such a base accusation was kept hanging- 
over her husband's head for about eight months, when she was well 
aware tliat it could be refuted in an hour. 

Upon this point 1 will trust myself to say no more ; but T will 
just notice briefly the supplemental and subsidiary charges made 
against me, in order to give some slight plausibility to the accusa- 
tion that I am myself the author of the pen and pencil emenda- 
tions in the Perkins Folio. 

First and foremost come what Mr. Hamilton without scruple ven- 
tures to call " the Bridgewater Shakespeare Forgeries."! Surely 
this is begging the whole question : they may be forgeries, but I 
do not believe that they are so. I never made them ; but I found 
them in 1835 among Lord EUesmere's manuscripts. I was, it is 
true, alone when they came to my hands ; but his Lordship had 
been in the room only a few minutes before; and the moment I 
had ascertained what they were, I carried them to him in the Up- 
per Library, and at his instance read them to him. His Lordship 
desired me to copy them ; I did so, and carried the originals and 

t I discovered twenty years ago some ilS. emeudations in a copy of Shakespeare, folio, 
1623, in liis Lordship's library, and these are now brought against me, and charged as iu 
the same handwriting as the notes in the Perkins Folio. I deny it on my own authority, 
and on the authority of the present Earl of Ellesmere, who recently wrote a note to a gentle- 
man of my acquaintance containing these words: — "There is no pretence whatever for 
saying that the emendations in the Perkins Shakespeare are in the same handwriting as 
those in my first folio : on the contrary, except as they are (or profess to be) of the same 
period, they are quite different." His Lordship kindly added, that I might make use, if I 
l)leased, of the result of his observations. 



27 

the copies to him. I left them with him ; and on the next day, or 
on the day after, I overtook him going into Bridgewater House : 
he told me that ho had just seen Mr. Murray, who had said that, if 
I would put the documents into shape, and write an Introduction 
to them, he would give me 50/. or 100/. (I think the former was the 
sum) for my pains. I declined the offer at onee, saying that I could 
not consent to niak'^ money by what was his Lordship's property. 
Lord Kllesmere, with his usual generosity, replied that the docu- 
ments were as much my property as his, for I had found them, and, 
but for me, they might not have been discovered till Doomsday. 
Still I declined, but said that I should be happy to print them for 
myself, and as presents to my friends, if I were permitted. " Do 
as you like with them," said his Lordship ; and, in a manner, 
forced them into my hands, adding, " consider them and treat them 
as your own." 

I hastened with them to liodd's and he and I examined them 
carefully : it was at first agreed that they should be printed, and 
that Kodd should sell as many as would pay the cost ; but I after- 
wards altered my views, and only a very few copies got out in the 
usual manner. 

Here I may be allowed to state, as it is in some sort necessary 
for my own vindication, that, until I prepared my first edition of 
Shakespeare, in 1843, I never made a single farthing by anything I 
wrote regarding our great dramatist Everything was printed at 
my own expense, for presents, or at the expense of Societies, to 
which I belonged, for the use of the members. Thus I was entirely 
out of pocket for my three tracts — ' New Facts,' ' New Particu- 
lars,' and ' Farther Particulars,' — and, in the whole, I spent more 
than 100/. in the illustration of Shakespeare's Life and Plays. A 
weekly critic has done me only justice when, some time ago, he 
remember that, but for the firm resistance of the Council, I should 
have presented the first edition of my ' Notes and Emendations' to 
the Shakespeare Society. The late Earl of Ellesmere and the late 
Duke of Devonshire both knew that I was not of a mercenary or 
fraudulent turn ; I laid out large sums for each of them ; and they 
never expected from me receipt or memorandum." 

My ' New Facts' consisted mainly of what Mr. Hamilton desig- 
nates as " the Bridgewater House Shakespeare Forgeries," He 
adduces little or no evidence to prove them so ; he is satisfied with 
his own gratis dictum ; but I doubt whether other people will be 
quite as easily contented. I had the documents in my possession 
for many years unasked for ; but one day Lord Ellesmere either 
wrote to me, or told me, that he had heard their authenticity ques- 
tioned, and lis spoke of Mr. J. Wilson Croker as an unbeliever. 



28 

His Lordship, therefore, requested me to send them to his house ;•. 
I did so. and expressed my satisfaction that he had resumed the 
possession of his own papers When I saw his Lordship next, a 
few weeks had elapsed, and he informed me that in the interval the 
documents had been " tested ;'" but he did not say by whom, nor 
in what way ; merely adding that he was quite satisfied. Mr. Cro- 
ker, at a subsequent period, told me that he had been convinced by 
the inspection, and iMr. IJallam, whom I met one day at dinner 
while I was one of the Vice-Presidents of the Society of Antiqua- 
ries, gave me the same assurance. A year or two subsequently 
the Earl of Kllesmere did not think me\mworthy of the appoint- 
ment of Secretary to the Commission on the British Museum. 

I cannot state exactly at what date it occurred ; but another 
paper subsequently turned up at Bridgewater House, which Lord 
Ellesmere insisted that I should retain, as a sort of justification of 
my own opinions. It was partly in the Italian handwriting of some 
scribe of the day, and partly in that of Sir George Buck, Master 
of the Revels to James the First, and signed with his name ; stat- 
ing that the Players of the Blackfriars required too much by 1,500/. 
for their property in the Theatre there, which the Crown or the 
City of London wished to purchase in ordar to abate the real or 
supposed nuisance. 

Of all these documents what has usually been called " the H S. 
Letter" has attracted most attention. H. S. has generally been 
taken as the initials of the Earl of Southampton, and most probably 
they were so. I need not describe a paper which has since been 
printed in every Life of Shakespeare ; and I only particularize it 
that I may mention that a fac-simile of it was made not very lono- 
after the formation of the Shakespeare Society, by Mr. Netherclif?, 
sen,, the most able as well as the most experienced artist in that 
department that I ever knew. He assured me at the time that, in 
his judgment, the original was a genuine document, and within the 
last few weeks, at my instance, he has, upon again inspecting all 
the documents, renewed this expression of his conviction. Subse- 
quently, that is to say, about the year 1848 or 1S49, the other 
" Bridgewater Shakespeare Forgeries," as Mr. Hamilton pleases to 
term them, also went through the hands of Mr. Netherclift, for the 
same purpose ; and, in order that nothing might be omitted, he 
added, at my instance, a separate sheet of the water-marks of 'the 
paper on which each had been written. 

Surely, if I had been conscious that all were forgeries, it is not 
likely that I should have placed them, without the 'slightest 
scruple or control, in such skilful and knowing hands. 

x\nother point may also here properly be noticed. I sent copies 



29 

of all fac-similes to the Rev. A Dyce, and to Mr. Halliwell, but 
only of " the H. 6. Letter" in the first instance. The Kev. A. Deyc 
in return sent me a note containing these words : — " The fac- 
simile has certainly removed from my mind all doubts about the 
geiiuiness of the Letter T He, therefore, did not consider it a 
" Bridgewater House Shakespeare Forgery." 

Mr. Halliwell, too, in his ' Life of Shakespeare,' 8vo. 1848, hav- 
ing introduced a fac-simile of part of " the H. S. Letter," asserts 
that an inspection of it " will suffice to convince anyone acquainted 
with such matters that it is a genuine mayiuscript of the period :'' 
he adds a reason why, in his opinion, it was almost impossible that 
it should be a forgery ; and, in a note, he subjoins that No. 201 
Art. 3, in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries, is a copy of a 
commission of about the same period, not only marked, like " the 
H. S. Letter," with the words coina vera, at the conclusion, but 
the whole absolutely written by the same hand. Yet this is one of 
the documents now " denounced" as spurious, 

I must say a few words, and they shall be as few as possible, 
regarding the MSS. at Dulwich College. Here I am charged not 
;S0 much with forgery as fraud, though forgery is also coupled in 
the accusation. A much-decayed letter has been preserved in the 
Library from Mrs. Alleyn to her husband, dated Oct. 3, 1603, and 
in one part of it, according to my reading, she ment'ons having 
seen " Mr. Shakespeare of the Globe." It is admitted on all 
hands, that the letter is very rotten, and that portions of it are de- 
ficient in this place ; but the gist of the imputation is, that Shake- 
speare was never spoken of in it, but that I, taking advantage of 
the defects in the old paper, purposely misrepresented the matter. 
It is added that for the accomplishment of this fraud, I misread and 
misrepresented the contents of the letter. Now, inasmuch as the 
>old decayed paper is here indisputely defective, Mr. Hamilton could 
not possibly know whether Shakespeare's name had or had not 
'been visible when I saw the letter thirty years ago. I may or may 
,not have mis-read some utterly unimportant words, nor does it sig- 
nify at all, as regards his biography, whether Shakespeare was or 
swas not in Southwark on the 3rd of October, 1603 ; but 1 assert 
jnost distinctly, that the name was contained in this part of Mrs. 
Allcyn's Letter, and a dear and dead friend of mine could bear 
witness to the fact were he fortunately now alive Not only did we 
endgavour to make out the perishing and perished words together, 
but we actually put the old epistle in a piece of paper for better 
security, and wrote upon the outside of it, that what was within 
was especially worthy of preservation.* If that envelope have 

* My coD&dent belief is, that we showed the letter and Shakespeare's name to the Master 
. or to the Librarian of the College of that day. 



30 

since disappeared (I have not seen it from that day to this) it may 
have been thoughtlessly cast aside, or purposely removed. Per- 
haps it is still in the box with the other papers that came under 
my observation. Let it not be forgotten that if my object had been 
to commit the imputed fraud, nothing could have been more easy 
than for me to have rubbed away a little more of the crumbling 
paper, and who then could have detected the trick ? Instead of 
doing so, I did my best to ensure that the rotten paper should hold 
together as long as possible. 

Mr. Hamilton also falls foul of other biographical materials 
which I met with, and which unquestionably exist in the same cha- 
ritable Institution. One of them is a Player's Challenge, collated 
by Mr. Halliwell, and printed by him in 1848, as a genuine relic of 
the same kind as several others that have come down to our time. 
Another is a sort of assessment to the poor of Southwark, dated 
the 6th of April, 1609, in which Shakespeare appears as a contrib- 
utor ; and surely it is enough for me to say of this document, that 
it was seen by Malone when I was only seven years old, as he has 
himself recorded in his 'Enquiry,' 8vo. 1796, p. 215. At all 
events I suppose that even Mr. Hamilton will not go quite the 
length of contending that I was a forger at that early age, when I 
was only a probationer in " pot-hooks and hangers." 

The last of the assailed documents I shall have reason on the 
present occasion, to notice is one which I did not find, but which 
was found for one, nearly thirty -five years ago, by the father of a 
very able and learned public servant, now high in the office in 
which the discovery was made. I was then collecting materials 
for my ' History of English Dramatic Poetry and the Stage ;' and 
for this purpose I had obtained an introduction to Mr. Lemon, then, 
I apprehend, the principal acting person in the State Paper Office, 
in George Street, Westminster. He was good enough to institute 
searches for me among the archives in his charge ; and calling 
there one morning (my memory is perfect on the subject, notwith- 
standing the lapse of more than a generation), he produced five or 
six papers, all contributing to my object. I lamented to him that 
I should not have time to copy them, all before the office closed, 
and Mr. Lemon kindly undertook to get one of them transcribed 
for me. It was a Petition from the Players at the Blackfriars 
Theatre, in answer to a remonstrance from the inhabitants of the 
precinct, mainly against the nuisance of the crowds attracted by 
the performances, and against the repair of the house. I myself 
copied part of the representation to which this document was a 
reply ; and when Mr. Lemon returned into the room with the trans- 
cript of the Petition, he and I compared the two : he took away the 



31 

original — which I never saw again — and I the copy of it, which I 
inserted in my ' History,' sending to the printer the very sheet 
which Mr. Lemon had given to me. I should have had it in my 
possession to'this day had I not, when I removed into the country, got 
rid of all my " waste," — consisting, among other things, of every 
proof and piece of " copy" of the works in which, up to 1850, I had 
been concerned. 

Such is the history of this Petition of the Players at the Black- 
friars, as far as I am acquainted with it, I understood that while 
the public archives were in a course of removal from Great George 
Street to the new State Paper Office it was mislaid, and was not 
recovered until some ten or twelve years ago. If, therefore, it be a 
forgery, it was executed before my time, for until that period I did 
not even know where the State Paper Office was. Mr. Hamilton is 
more thanhalf inclined to treat as an imposition another highly 
curious document, printed for the first time in my last edition of 
' Shakespeare' (8vo. 1858, Vol. III. p. 214) ; but really he ought to 
inform himself better regarding our public muniments before he 
scatters his imputations. 

I humbly hope that all but my enemies will be of opinion that I 
have cleared myself reasonably well from all suspicion of guilt, and 
especially from any discreditable connexion with the emendations 
in the Perkins Folio. The Eev. Dr. Wellesley knows that they 
were in it when I bought the book. I could have no motive for 
assigning them to anybody else, if I were really the author of se 
many invaluable changes ; they would do the utmost credit to any 
editor, and would have made his fortune as well as his fame. Why, 
then, should I foist them into an old folio when they would have 
most importantly benefitted myself and my family ? The charge 
is ridiculous. All editors of Shakespeare since 1852 have been, 
more or less, indebted to them : several have adopted them, most 
grudgingly to be sure, but they have been compelled to admit 
them. The Rev. Mr. Dyce, the latest editor (myself excepted), in 
spite of his frequent, merely dogged, adherence to the exploded 
text, without a single reason offered, has allowed, under his own 
hand, that not a few of the emendations are " 50 admirable that 
they can hardly he conjectured.'" He must pardon me for once 
more employing his very words, for they so forcibly express my 
own convictions, and indeed almost go beyond them, that I cannot 
refuse myself the satisfaction of quoting them whenever an occa- 
sion fairly presents itself. 

Of Mr. N. E. S. A. Hamilton I knew nothing until I saw his ac- 
cusatory epistle in the Times of the 2nd of July last ; but accord- 
ing to the specimen before me, he does not seem very well qualified. 



32 

for the office of a literary detective : he speaks on behalf of himself 
and ''his colleagues," but I cannot believe that all of them feel 
anything like full reliance on his championship. For myself {mea 
culpa, perhaps,) I never even heard of him ; and the first moment 
I was informed that he was attacking me, 1 expressed my astonish- 
ment that the Manuscript Department of the British Museum had 
entrusted such a cause to such obscure hands ; and, I own, that I 
not very judiciously added the corrosive couplet of the satirist, — 

Some creatures are so little and so light. 
We hardly know they live, until they bite. 

— I did not wonder, therefore, that he should eagerly have " seiz- 
ed" the opportunity" of obtaining notoriety, rather than distinc- 
tion, by aiming, without the slightest notice, a deadly blow at the 
character of a literary labourer, who has spent more than fifty 
years especially in the study of his native language and of his 
native writers. 

From Sir Frederic Madden, however, with whom I have been ac- 
quainted for more than thirty years, with whom I have often cor- 
responded, and with whom I have exchanged books, I looked 
for rather difi'erent treatment. It is true that in a note to me, on 
a different subject, in November last, he mentioned, only incident- 
ally, his wish to see the Perkins Folio. I answered the other points 
of his communication ; but this I postponed, merely because the pre- 
sent Duke of Devonshire was then in Lancashire, and because I 
hoped that when he returned to London, he would intrust the Per- 
kinst Folio to my hands (which had gratefully presented it to hi^ 
noble, condescending, and most generous predecessor), and that I 
should thus be able myself to convey it to the British Museum and 
show it to Sir F. Madden % In the mean time his Grace, the pre- 
sent Duke, had confided to my care the preparation of the fac- 
simile of the ' Hamlet' of 1604, and Sir F. Madden's slight expres- 
sion of a desire to inspect the Perkins Folio escaped my memory. 
I never dreamed that Sir F. Madden would consider this trifling 
neglect as a personal offence, especially after he had got over the 
fact, which I was told he had once taken seriously, that I had not, 
in the outset, solicited his opinion as to the real date of the emen- 
dations. On their positive and intrinsic value, the authorities of 
the British Museum (and I am not surprised at it) do not, accord- 
ing to Mr. Hamilton, pretend to an opinion. On this point, there- 
fore, I may confidently refer them to the Eev. A. Dyce. 

J. Payne Collier. 

X Had I been permitted to do so, or had I been asked by Sir F. Madden, when first he 
obtained the volume from the Duke of Devonshire, to look at it at the British Museum, in 
order that I might see if it were precisely in the same state as when I gave it to the late 
Duke, a great deal of trouble, especially about the pencil marks, might have been saved. 
But then Mr. Hamilton would have been deprived of the opportunity which he " seized," 
of making a book and bringing himself into temporary notice. 



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